{"title":"The logic of regulatory impact assessment: From evidence to evidential reasoning","authors":"Kati Rantala, Noora Alasuutari, Jaakko Kuorikoski","doi":"10.1111/rego.12542","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze the epistemic foundations of RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types of knowledge to inferences about the future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model of argumentation, we situate deductive and inductive reasoning steps within a schema we call the impact argument. This approach helps us identify inherent uncertainties in RIAs, and their location in different types of reasoning. We illustrate the theoretical section with impact assessments of two recent legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. We argue that the concept of “evidence-based regulatory impact assessment” is misleading and should be based on the notion of “regulatory impact assessment as evidential reasoning,” which better recognizes its processual and argumentative nature.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Regulation & Governance","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12542","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze the epistemic foundations of RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types of knowledge to inferences about the future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model of argumentation, we situate deductive and inductive reasoning steps within a schema we call the impact argument. This approach helps us identify inherent uncertainties in RIAs, and their location in different types of reasoning. We illustrate the theoretical section with impact assessments of two recent legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. We argue that the concept of “evidence-based regulatory impact assessment” is misleading and should be based on the notion of “regulatory impact assessment as evidential reasoning,” which better recognizes its processual and argumentative nature.
期刊介绍:
Regulation & Governance serves as the leading platform for the study of regulation and governance by political scientists, lawyers, sociologists, historians, criminologists, psychologists, anthropologists, economists and others. Research on regulation and governance, once fragmented across various disciplines and subject areas, has emerged at the cutting edge of paradigmatic change in the social sciences. Through the peer-reviewed journal Regulation & Governance, we seek to advance discussions between various disciplines about regulation and governance, promote the development of new theoretical and empirical understanding, and serve the growing needs of practitioners for a useful academic reference.